Yay! Hakurou has his own thread! :) When I post photos from Flickr I use the "share" button, which I believe is the curved arrow pointing to the right. Clicking on that should pop up the option of sharing via a link, HTML, or something else....BBCode maybe?

1 Human + 1 HokkaidoRIP Amy (Border Collie)

“Anyone can love a thing because. That's as easy as putting a penny in your pocket.But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect.” --Patrick Rothfuss, A Wise Man's Fear

"Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination." --Brandon Sanderson, the First Ideal from The Stormlight Archive.

“Anyone can love a thing because. That's as easy as putting a penny in your pocket.But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect.” --Patrick Rothfuss, A Wise Man's Fear

"Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination." --Brandon Sanderson, the First Ideal from The Stormlight Archive.

Thanks @whobitme I was using flickr from my phone and the copy link doesn't work. By the way he's 13lbs as of today.

@shishiinu I will be making a trip to SD soon to socialize him with some friends dogs, maybe I can take him by to meet his dad, although I don't think Toshi will be exited to see Yuki or vice versa haha

lol, too cute. He's got other things to do. When Meitou was little he loved to chase (actually, he still loves it), but then he would shark onto my pants. Not quite so cute. ;)

1 Human + 1 HokkaidoRIP Amy (Border Collie)

“Anyone can love a thing because. That's as easy as putting a penny in your pocket.But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect.” --Patrick Rothfuss, A Wise Man's Fear

"Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination." --Brandon Sanderson, the First Ideal from The Stormlight Archive.

Nami is pretty good. She'll pay attention to me, at least - aknowledge me before she decides to do something else. I think with time, she'll be good with her recall. I just got her so it's still super early and I haven't done any training with her.

Shiro seems to take after his mom for the most part. He's got pretty decent recall so far. We'll see if time changes that.

Fionna (Fala) is getting worse each time we go out. I think I'm going to put her in classes and start focusing on it right away for when my sister gets her. She got out of the house today and booked it down to the bottom of the road where there's a small patch of trees and a mud puddle. I caught her in the brush. :(

“Anyone can love a thing because. That's as easy as putting a penny in your pocket.But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect.” --Patrick Rothfuss, A Wise Man's Fear

"Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination." --Brandon Sanderson, the First Ideal from The Stormlight Archive.

Update, sorry no pics lately...I've been busy. Kuro got his shots today and is doing well. He's at 17.5lbs as of today. He no longer cries in the crate and hasn't had any accidents. Althought I've been on him so I haven't let any accidents happen.

Toshi is doing a great job especially considering all the crotch chomping kuro does to him. Kuro has an interesting routine when they eat. After they are done kuro waits till toshi goes outside and then he goes and has a second helping of Toshi's food.

Glad to hear Hakurou is doing well. Meitou feels like he needs to clean up after my Border Collie who is a messier eater than Meitou so she usually little bits behind. He just lurks nearby until she wanders away and then he frantically licks her dish. He would try and eat off her plate while she's still eating if she would let him. And if I would let him. Sometimes he still needs reminders to give her space until she's done (especially since he is so touchy about her being near his plate even when there isn't food on it).

1 Human + 1 HokkaidoRIP Amy (Border Collie)

“Anyone can love a thing because. That's as easy as putting a penny in your pocket.But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect.” --Patrick Rothfuss, A Wise Man's Fear

"Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination." --Brandon Sanderson, the First Ideal from The Stormlight Archive.

I'm a little nervous how he will be off leash Gen. Wish the garmin Astro collar would fit him. He's a lot different than Toshi in that even in new weird situations he's fine without me for the most part. Toshi will be constantly looking for me. kuro will come when called but otherwise I won't see him too often. Haven't been able to do what I did with toshi yet till he gets all his shots.

With Fionna, she went through a week or so where she was CRAZY and wanted to just run run run. I kept her on a long line during that week and rewarded a LOT for her successful recall.

Keep reinforcing that coming back to you is really, really good. Fionna is easy enough to motivate right now with food and affection - which is awesome. Puppies tend to be a little easier in that regard.

Even now that I allow her off lead again, though, she is a VERY confident puppy. She ranges far and doesn't check in a whole lot. She's learned recall well, though, just from reinforcing that coming back is awesome and it doesn't always mean she gets the leash or we go home. I try to call her back as much as possible just to reinforce her. Give her a couple scritches and send her on her way.

It may just be the differences in the breed. Kai seem a bit more... "sticky" with their check-ins than Kishu, so far, to me. I've never had a Kai, but I went hiking with Chrystal and met her guys, so that was just the impression I got.

That's pretty much just like taro and Yuki as pups. Best bet is not be too afraid and get out in a big open space and let them run. Just sit and wait for them to figure out to come back and when they do, praise the hell out of them.

When taro was a pup in Japan, I would take him everyday into the back woods behind the house and let him explore. When he was ready to come back, I would praise him and start walking away from him. That drove him to follow me and basically make large circles around me.

Just like you've seen my dogs hunt Mike, they will go out and come back on their own. Now this makes it hard to keep them off leash at places like parks and dog beaches but since my dogs are primarily hunting dogs, I just live with the fact that my dogs won't be the Labrador retriever that I can take out to public areas.

And to just add to that. IMHO, after having kishu kens for awhile the most important part about the breed is to build the bond between person and dog. If your dog doesn't have confidence in you and have a bond, it will be really difficult to have a good off leash kishu. My old dog Riki was really difficult. It took us years and years to develope a bond where he felt comfortable with me. Riki taught me a lot about having a bond with a dog. I made a lot of mistakes with him which contributed in the time it took for him to be comfortable with me out in the woods.

“Anyone can love a thing because. That's as easy as putting a penny in your pocket.But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect.” --Patrick Rothfuss, A Wise Man's Fear

"Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination." --Brandon Sanderson, the First Ideal from The Stormlight Archive.